Tom's Diary
by s.j. snodgrass
Summary: Bellatrix is enjoying her fifth year at Hogwarts, when a young Lucius Malfoy brings an interesting Diary to school. How could a Black like herself resist taking something that could have belonged to the rising Dark Lord? Is fascination with Tom healthy?


**A/N: This is my first Harry Potter fic, and just so I could get all the dates right, I went on a painstaking search for the dates on various websites. Thus, I am quite confident in the dates I have here. That being said, enjoy. **

She awoke as she was turning over, an eerie green light falling on her face. She opened her dark eyes and focused on the small window located high on the wall she was facing, the lingering desire for sleep slowly ebbing away. She scowled at the offensive window, which was allowing the sunlight-turned green from the lake-to intrude on her sleep. However, there was not much she could do now, as she was obviously awake.

She sat up and stretched, surveying the room as she did so. She noticed quickly that she was one of the last of the girls in bed, most of the other beds already deserted. Sparing a glance at her sister's bed beside her, she noticed that she, too, had vanished from sight. That didn't surprise her, though. This was Narcissa's second year at Hogwarts, and although she was quite the late sleeper at home, here she had taken every opportunity she could to wander the unfamiliar halls.

Yawning, she got up and stretched again. It took her few moments, but eventually she located the clothing she had been looking for, strewn about the floor as she often left it. She threw her pajamas onto the floor to join its comrades and slipped on her uniform, flattening the wrinkles with her hands. She then shrugged in her long, black robe, stuffing her wand into it as she did so.

As she was pulling on her socks and not at all caring if her skirt rode up in the process, she heard a few of the other girls stirring. When she finished dressing herself completely, she slipped on her shoes, pausing to glance at herself on the way out of the girls' dormitory.

As usual she was pleased by her reflection. She had inherited the general good looks of the Black family, which, she had discovered, looked twice as enchanting on a girl. Her heavily lidded eyes blinked as she turned to her side, brushing her long black hair through with her fingers. She thought she was very pretty, with long dark hair and eyes, hips that had already begun to have that elegant curve so many men desired, and last but not least her chest which was filling out quite nicely, in her opinion.

However, despite her dark beauty, she did feel a bit of jealousy in the back of her mind when she thought of the beauty her little sister was already acquiring. Barely a year older than eleven and already Narcissa's beauty was shining through. She knew that in just a few years Narcissa's beauty would fill out and overshadow her own. Already that brat Lucius fawned over Narcissa like she was God's gift to the world. As if she would allow Narcissa to have a long relationship with _him._

Snorting in disgust, she thanked her lucky stars that she was four years older than her sister and would hopefully be out of school before Narcissa stole the limelight from her. Andromeda was nipping at her heels already, as it was.

Having no desire to linger any longer on these petty thoughts, she walked out of the dormitory and out into the Slytherin common room. After looking around for a couple of seconds, she concluded that nobody she cared about was in the common room anymore, she slipped out into the Hogwarts dungeons, up the stairs, down a few halls, and finally into the Great Hall itself.

Here was where everyone was always at in the mornings at this time, lounging around eating breakfast and talking to each other. She smiled to herself and headed to the long Slytherin table, being careful to give the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables a wide berth. Ravenclaw she didn't mind so much, they were alright, but Gryffindor…She shuddered inwardly at the thought of the house full of half bloods and blood traitors.

"Oi! Bellatrix! Over here!" She looked up as the gruff male voice called to her. She smiled at Rudolphus's eager face, and Rabastan looking at her with a dreamy expression. She laughed. How could she have doubted for a second that her beauty was overshadowed by her sisters', who were sitting with Rabastan and Rudolphus.

Bellatrix walked over to the two brothers, who immediately moved aside for her to sit between them.

"You sure took your time waking up this morning, didn't you?" Rudolphus said, laughing and planting a kiss on her cheek. She watched in amusement as Rabastan looked away, disappointment written all over his face.

Bellatrix listened to the two boys talking as she ate, Rabastan eventually getting over his brother's waving Bellatrix in his face. Then, as soon as she was biting into a particularly good piece of toast and jam, a familiar lazy drawl intruded on her senses and ruined her perfectly good morning.

Lucius Malfoy was sitting a few places down from her, as close to Narcissa as possible. Narcissa, however, was not giving him the positive attention he craved, instead choosing to insult or ignore him. Bellatrix smiled. _Good girl._

But Lucius was determined to get a reaction out of her. He looked around him to make sure no one he didn't want looking was looking, then he reached into his robes and pulled out a small clear ball, a black scarf, and a small, black leather diary. He looked around him at his audience. His friends looked…..stupid, Narcissa sniffed, and Bellatrix raised an eyebrow when his gaze fell on her.

His pale face turned red at the lack of response, so he leaned in close to the rest of them. "These aren't bits of junk!" He hissed.

Rudolphus laughed loudly. "Then what are they? Gringott's greatest treasures?" He caused the rest of Lucius's audience to bellow with laughter as well, and Lucius turned an even darker shade of red.

"No!" He said loudly, attracting the attention of a few other students….at the Ravenclaw table.

He immediately lowered his voice and they went back to their breakfasts. "I took these from my father. They're dark magic! One of them is said to have been used by…" He looked around again, then leaned in very close, and spoke in a voice little more than a whisper, "…_Him."_

Bellatrix choked on her toast and stared at Lucius with wide eyes. Everyone else around them, it seemed, had had the same reaction. After all, almost everyone had been hearing rumors about _Him._ The new dark wizard that had been creeping into the corners of their lives, claiming pureblood supremacy, and rumored to have the power to back it up. Bellatrix had met him once, and only once, at her parents' house. He had been having a discussion with her parents she was not allowed to have, and when he finally left, she watched him in awe as he left the house. He practically oozed power, and it had fascinated her.

"You're lying!" Narcissa accused, her voice shrill. She had seen him once, too. But where Bellatrix had been fascinated by him, desiring to serve him, Narcissa had been afraid.

"Calm down, Cissa." Bellatrix hissed.

"It's true!" Lucius argued. Most of the other students he had hushed moments ago were already losing interest. All but Bellatrix.

She was staring at the diary, laying in the middle of the table. A diary that might have been _His…_the one that called himself Lord Voldemort….

She waited until Lucius was distracted by Narcissa leaving, and struck. She took her wand out and held it under the table, muttering, "Accio diary!" but the diary didn't budge. She looked at it with confusion, and tried again. Again, it didn't move. Cursing to herself, she reached across the table and snatched it. Rudolphus made a face at her, but Lucius was none the wiser.

Bellatrix tucked the little book away in her robes, and prepared herself for the rest of the day.

Her day passed too slowly, perhaps because of what awaited her, but she was practically itching to open that book when she got to the dormitory and flopped down on her bed, drawing the curtains around herself for privacy.

With shaking hands, she turned the diary around, then frowned when she saw the name on the back:

_Tom Marvolo Riddle_

Her heart sank. So it was not _His_ diary. Just some other guy's who had a very muggle name. She sighed. It was a huge disappointment, after how she had to steal it and all. But waste not want not, she wasn't going to give it back to that damn Malfoy boy and it was a pretty diary, if not a bit worn. So, out of boredom and maybe frustration, she opened the diary and wrote.

_Hello, Diary. I am Bellatrix Black. I am fifteen and am in my fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

She extracted her quill from the yellow paper and was about to dip it in ink when her words disappeared. She was confused. She wrote the words again, only to have them disappear in the same way. Now she was irritated. She dipped her quill in her ink and started a new line.

_You are a tricky one, Tom's diary. Are you enchanted to irritate people who want to write in you, or am I special? _

After she had written this, she watched as it disappeared again. She was about to toss the book on her sister's bed when words, written in a much better hand than hers, appeared on the paper.

_**You are very impatient, Bellatrix Black. My name is Tom Riddle, and I am not enchanted to irritate people at all. You are just easily irritated.**_

She gasped and watched as those new words disappeared like hers.

_You understand me, then Tom?_

She wrote.

_**Indeed.**_

She was fascinated by the book, and this Tom. She regretted thinking him anywhere near a muggle, since she couldn't see a muggle doing anything this amazing.

_Have you ever heard of my school? _

_**I know a lot about your school, Bellatrix. It was my school once, too. **_

_Tell me about it, Tom. _

_**But you know a lot about it already. **_

_Then tell me about you. _

_**What do you want to know?**_

She shivered. She wondered if she should be talking to this book, but it was fun to talk to him. He seemed intelligent, charming. Much different from Rudolphus or Rabastan. But even so, it felt so dangerous, for some reason. She had to calm herself down and take a deep breath before she wrote the next line.

_I want to know everything._

She could almost feel Tom smile, and the atmosphere grow darker in the room.

_**I doubt that you want to know so much about me.**_

_But I do. _

_**Very well. **_

She watched his words fade away, and eagerly awaited the next ones. However, none came. She wondered what was the matter. Maybe it had all just been an enchantment, and it had worn off. Or maybe Tom didn't want to share his secrets with her. She didn't want to wait, but she forced herself not to write anything for a few more moments.

This proved to be the best course of action, as just when she was about to go insane from waiting for his answer, his familiar hand rose back to the surface of the diary.

_**There's a patient girl.**_

No sooner had the words appeared did the diary begin to shake. She backed away from it, but a yellow light erupted from the diary and before she could do anything about it she was falling, it seemed, into the pages of the book.

She did not land hard, but she sort of floated to the ground, and everything looked as it did now, except now she was looking at the boys' Slytherin dormitory, not the girls'.

There was only one other person in the room. A tall, dark haired boy. He turned to face her, and she blushed. He was very handsome, with dark eyes and smooth skin. He was wearing his uniform shirt open, apparently having been interrupted in the middle of changing. She blushed a deeper red, but then realized that he was not looking at her, as she had expected.

"Excuse me, sorry to interrupt you, but….I'm looking for Tom Riddle. Are you him?" She asked. He did not respond, though, and she realized he could not see her. That she was sort of a ghost on this place.

He seemed to be listening to something, then, and hastily re-buttoned his shirt. He rushed from the room, and she followed close behind. When he had reached the common room, another boy called out to him, calling him "Tom". Bellatrix at least knew she was correct in assuming that was who he was, now.

But Tom ignored the boy, and kept walking. He left the common room, and Bellatrix followed. He went to the room she recognized as the bathroom haunted by Moaning Myrtle. She was curious as to what he could be doing in the girl's bathroom. She looked around, expecting Moaning Myrtle to come flying out of a stall to yell at him any minute, but she never came.

Tom was kneeling next to one of the sinks, and speaking in a strange language. Parseltongue, she realized, though she had never heard anyone speak it before. It was fascinating. He sounded almost like he was calming something. Then he turned abruptly and looked through Bellatrix to the bathroom door.

Bellatrix looked, too, and gasped when she saw Moaning Myrtle standing there. Only, she was not dead, but very much alive.

"What are you doing in here, Tom?" She asked, blushing slightly. He smiled a wicked smile and walked toward the door.

"You are Myrtle, Yes?" He asked in a smooth, manipulative voice. She blushed deeper, if possible, and nodded.

His wicked smile grew. "You are muggleborn, yes? I'd be careful here if I were you."  
He then walked from the room, leaving Myrtle shocked, her eyes swimming with tears.

Bellatrix followed him, then, to the prefects bathroom. She was beginning to wonder what kind of fascination he had with bathrooms, when she saw something that hit her like a blow to the chest. Inside the large, empty bathtub was a huge, horned snake. Something out of her worst nightmares. At the sight of Tom, it rose, and she felt a sudden fear for him.

But Tom reached out and stroked it, talking to it in Parseltongue. It curled up again, at Tom's feet, and Tom turned to face Bellatrix.

"You wanted to see." He said.

Then she was back in the girls' dormitory, in the present time, panting, sweat pouring from her brow.

She was amazed. Afraid, yes, that such a powerful presence existed in that little book, but also elated. He was divine, this Tom Riddle. A master of so much power…to be able to handle that…monster…and the way he despised mudbloods as much as she did…it was like a drug, this euphoria. Tom was like a drug, and she was never going to let him go.

A week later, a week filled with writing to Tom, she was at her parents' house for the holidays. Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Andromeda were on the front step, having just left the escort that had taken them home, as her parents had been to busy to get them. In the snow covered yard her little cousins were playing. Apparently they had been told not to come inside until they were called, on account of a visitor.

Bellatrix, unafraid though her sisters were, opened the front door of the large house and stepped inside. The house was mostly silent, save for muffled conversation leading from the kitchen. She went towards the sound, her sister's trailing reluctantly behind her.

When she reached the kitchen, she saw her mother and father on the opposite side of the table facing her, and a dark, tall hooded stranger whose back was facing her. She immediately froze, unsure of what to do at this time. Fear seized her for some reason.

Her parents' eyes had gone wide at her presence, and the stranger turned slowly to face her.

She could see his face from beneath his hood, snakelike, with horrible red eyes. She recognized him at once. It was _Him._ Lord Voldemort.

"M-m-My Lord…."She stammered, feeling embarrassed as soon as she'd said it. She was not sure how she was to address him, and in her ignorance she had let it slip out.

He looked at her with a curious expression, and she bowed, not sure what else to do in that situation. As soon as she bowed, though, she heard a clunk. She looked down at the ground and saw that Tom Riddle's diary had slipped out of her robes where she kept it. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, unable to believe her stupidity in front of Lord Voldemort.

"Girl." His voice was high, cold, and cruel. "Pick up that book and hand it to me."

She hesitated, but only for a moment. She did not want to be rid of Tom, especially after she had told him so much, but she had no choice under his cold glare but to pick up the book and hand it to him.

His long, spider-like hands grasped the diary and took it from her. She looked up and saw him, looking over the diary like a lost friend. At the other side of the table her mother was babbling about how Bellatrix was home for the holiday and would never have interrupted if she had known…

But Voldemort was not listening. He was looking now at Bellatrix. "What is this to you?" He asked.

"A..a…friend." She stammered, again frustrated by her own stupidity. How could she say something like that to him? She just couldn't help saying too much to him, though. When she looked into those eyes, she felt like he could see what she was thinking anyway, so there would be no point in lying.

He seemed to be pondering her answer, then, The diary vanished into his robes, and she felt the pang of loss hit her like the Hogwarts Express. She would have demanded it back from anyone else, but not from him. She had a feeling she would do anything for him.

"Bellatrix Black." He hissed, looked her face over. She saw him grin, and her heart flopped. Though the face looking into her own was worlds different from the one in the diary, she knew that smile, and it was the same. She would do whatever that smile...whatever this man, asked her to do. Even as he rose from his seat to approach her, she knew.

He looked down at her, the smile fading, but not quite gone, and said,

"Bellatrix, what is it you know about the Dark Arts?"


End file.
